Kimonos
by niennah
Summary: Angel/Darla. What Angel meant when he said "Last time I saw you it was kimonos." **Complete** Warning: explicit sex. You don't like it, don't read.
1. Hungry

Author: Anna 

email: anna@gateworld.net

Distribution: just ask.

Disclaimer: You know which ones are mine, and which ones belong to Joss, ME, and so on.

Notes: In _Angel_, S1 of BtVS, Angel says to Darla "Last time I saw you it was kimonos." Now, kimonos are only worn in Japan (I have a sinking feeling the China episodes covered the kimono comment). So I wrote this story set in early 1920s Japan. If there are inaccuracies, forgive me. At least I know where they wear kimonos. :) Also, Angel is called Angelus here not because he actually is his evil alter ego, but because I don't think he'd have been called Angel yet. He probably wasn't called anything by anybody.

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Pontocho-dori was quiet. Now and then the silence was disturbed by a muffled laugh or a creaking door as the evening wore into night. It did not look like much, this little alley between the Kamogawa River and Kiyamachi-dori. It was wide enough for perhaps three people walking abreast, or a sedan chair, but little else. Since most visitors to this little street arrived in sedan chairs, that was just wide enough. Gion was just across the river, and the whole area was known for being the pleasure quarter of the old capital. Even though Kyoto had not been the Imperial Capital for over 200 years, the city still had enough in the way of business and beaurocracy to keep Gion and its surrounds very busy. 

And Darla never went hungry.

She owned an extremely exclusive teahouse on the river side of Pontocho-dori. Like every such teahouse, its exterior was unassuming to the point of anonymity. Wooden-fronted, an old wooden sliding door, and two flaps of cloth hanging over the door. The cloth was the only indication that this was not a private house. Her girls lived in a separate building at the back of the teahouse. It was an old wooden place, with a courtyard, where the girls slept late in the day, then spent the rest of the day indoors preparing for the evening. Not because they were vampires did they live by such hours, but because they were geisha. White faces, living at night, preying off men; to Darla it didn't seem that great a leap.

She sighed as her servant adjusted her wig. It was an intricate affair, black lacquered hair with beautiful wood and paper hair decorations, each one of which would have fed a peasant for a month. Soon her face would be white, her lips a rosebud of red, her eyelids also red, and not a soul would know that her hair was not her own.

Her face completed, Darla stood to dress. Her servant took an exquisite kimono which had been laid out, and placed it over the layers Darla was already wearing. It was predominantly red shot with gold, with gold and silver embroidery depicting beautiful mountain scenes around the hem. Her obi was also red, but no gold. Red as blood.

She was ready. Darla had always loved the ritual of dressing; ever since she was human, female clothing had always required at least one servant to help don it to perfection. Kimonos demanded more preparation than any clothing Darla had ever worn, and she enjoyed this ritual all the more because of it.

Her kimono hung low at the nape of her neck, exposing the very top of her back. White paint covered her skin, except for a tiny line around her hairline. How men would follow that line with their eyes as they spoke to her! It made Darla laugh. In Europe - well, in Europe before those dreadful middle-class revolutions - one could flaunt one's breasts, even an ankle, and no one took any notice. Here, one showed the nape of one's neck and a tiny line of unpainted skin, and men fell over themselves to have you pour their tea.

She met Yoshida in the courtyard. The sky hung heavy with stars, and the air was the light yet still warm air of a Japanese autumn. 

"Ah, Yoshida-kun, isn't it a beautiful night?" 

"Yes, Darla. It is." He did not take his eyes from her face.

Darla stood close to the young man. She ran a finger over his cheek, noting again the perfection of the cheekbone. Japanese men, she silently mused, have perfect bone structure.

"You work too hard, Seiji," she said, using his personal name in the intimacy of the moment. "Your eyes look tired."

Yoshida allowed himself a smile.

"If I work hard, Darla, it is for you. And if my eyes are tired, you make them sparkle again."

"That would be trite if it weren't so touching," replied Darla.

Yoshida bowed his head slightly in acknowledgement. "It sounds better in my language." He paused for a moment.

"Tonight is Fujisawa-san, of the Imperial Agency, and his party," he continued.

"Ah, Fujisawa-san," repeated Darla. She smiled. "He always brings me such pretty ones!"

"Everything is arranged as usual."

"Thank you, Seiji. You always do everything so well." She took his face in her hands.

"Thank you, Mistress," he replied in a whisper.

She leant close to his face, until her mouth all but touched his. She felt his breath on her lips, and used her body's memories to breathe cold breath into his mouth. He closed his eyes, and inhaled this breath devoid of life. Then she was gone into the teahouse. He stood in the courtyard under the stars, imagining what more there could be.

Darla smiled as she walked away from him, the paint on her lips intact. It was so easy, she thought, but satisfying, nevertheless. The satisfaction nearly overpowered the strange, disquieting feeling she'd had in her breast all evening, but not quite. It worried her. She knew that feeling. She wished it would go away.

The girls soon followed her into the teahouse, ready for the evening ahead. Darla had four girls, all trained from youth to be the best geisha in Kyoto. They had been raised in Gion since before they could remember. They were pure geisha. And they had to be. Darla's price for an evening with them was high.

Yoshida had been a gift. He had begun his career in the Kyoto palace, holding some menial position in the palace's labyrinthine beaurocracy. One night a superior invited him along with a party to visit the most exclusive teahouse in Kyoto. He couldn't believe his luck. He must have been noticed, he thought. He must have been marked for an important position. In fact, he learned later, he had been marked for death. Yoshida had been part of the price his superior had been willing to pay for an evening with the famed Darla and her girls. Darla had told him everything when she killed his superior. He had enjoyed watching her do that.

So he had begun to work for her, to be one of her day people. It was now he who arranged prices. He personally saw each payment before the evening's entertainment. If the man was unacceptable, Yoshida turned down the client.

No one tried to pay with handsome young clerks anymore.

Yoshida returned to the house. He undressed in his room, and slipped on a plain cotton yukata. He slid back his paper door, and made his way down the narrow stairs and out to the bathhouse. His yukata neatly folded and placed on a wooden shelf, he washed, and slid into the bath. It was the only time of day he could be sure none of the girls would be around the bathhouse. It was fine with him. Like everyone, he bathed at night. The girls just had a later bedtime than he did. He lay against the wooden side of the bath. He rested his head back and closed his eyes. Thoughts of Darla made their way to the front of his mind, as they always did at this quiet time. Every time he thought, no, I won't do it. It wasn't right, he told himself. Still, every time, he did. This time was no different. He slid his hand under the water, and began to stroke his already erect penis.

"Darla," he whispered at every stroke.

Angelus watched through a crack between the wooden slats. He watched the boy become more fevered in his stroking, more fervent in his whispering, until his face creased, his body tightened, and Angelus could smell semen in the bathwater. It made him hungry.

Everything made him hungry. He sat back into the darkness of the little nook where he was hiding. He heard Yoshida empty the bath, then leave the bathhouse to return to his rooms. Angelus could only laugh. The boy obviously had no idea what Darla really was. He probably knew she was a vampire, but, like most humans, until he had witnessed the ferocity of a vampire, he could have no idea what that meant. Angelus smiled bitterly. A hundred and fifty years witnessing and participating in the most brutal acts of cruelty, and here he was crawling back. Again. How could he blame the boy?

He sat back to wait. He could hear her voice. He heard male voices, slurring as they drank more and more sake. He heard the clear tones of a shamisen, played delicately by one of the painted things he had seen cross the courtyard earlier. Then, after hours of simply listening, Angelus saw a dark figure stumble into the courtyard. He looked lost. He peered around, trying to make out shapes in the murky darkness. As he turned, he saw a white face appear in the shadows. Angelus could hear the man's heartbeat speed up at the sight, though, at this distance, whether it was from fear or excitement, he could not tell. He could hear the conversation easily.

"Are you lost?" asked Darla, her girlish accents coming through in her perfect Japanese.

"Yes… no… I thought Fujisawa-san said this was the way. Is it?" The man was confused, but, Angelus could now hear, not yet afraid.

"Is it the way? Depends on where you're going," replied Darla, taking a few sinuous steps towards the man.

"I was…" His voice faded as Darla wound her way slowly towards him. Her pale face was ghostly in the gloom. "I was leaving, or trying to leave. Fujisawa-san said this was the way – I must be mistaken…"

There it was. Angelus recognized it in an instant. Fear.

Darla could feel it too.

"You're not mistaken," she crooned.

The man gasped as the benign white face became a demonic mask.

"You're right where you're supposed to be." Darla smiled, then sank her fangs into the man's neck. She took her time, pulling on his blood in a measured fashion. Angelus watched his body spasm just before the heart stopped beating. At least it was a pleasant death. He'd seen much worse.

Darla let the body drop. Her face became smooth again. She looked into the shadows. He could feel her eyes on his skin.

"Angelus." It was not an order, or a request; she simply said his name.

He stood, stumbling, unable to look at her. "Darla."

She stared at him for a moment. Then she turned and swept into the teahouse. He followed her.


	2. New

The men had just departed, taking Darla's four girls with them to an izakaya nearby. They would return at dawn, having spent the night drinking beer and mingling with rich men and a few prominent performers from Kabukicho. Until then, the teahouse would be left to Darla and her servants. And Yoshida sleeping in the house behind.

Darla led Angelus to a small room. Through the paper screens he heard the clinking of delicate bowls as servants cleaned up after the party. He could hear their heartbeats and smell faint perspiration on their clean skin. It was nothing compared to the maddening smell of that boy.

And there was Darla. Her face was a blank because of the white paint. But her eyes. Her eyes hadn't changed. Angelus knew them of old. Still everything, still gentle, vicious, beautiful, deadly. Everything she was, her eyes told. If you knew how to read them.

He fell at her feet, face raised to her. Her rosebud lips arched into a sneer. He looked away.

"Darla, I need –" She waited. She wanted to hear it. "I need blood."

"Still tortured by that filthy soul, my boy?" She stood away from him, as if it might be contagious.

He pushed himself to his knees. She could see the soul there, like a black weight on his shoulders, bowing his head and aching his back. She might have felt pity, were it not for the contempt.

"Look at you," she continued. "Your clothes! You've been wearing them for how long? I swear that's what you were wearing when you left my rooms in Shanghai!"

Angelus looked down at his clothes, suddenly ashamed. They were rags. They once had style, but it was a long time ago.

"And your hair." Suddenly she was face to face with him, grabbing the grimy locks at the back of his head. "You come here, to my home, looking like this? No man has worn hair like this in decades!" She spat out the words. "You look wretched. I won't have you polluting this place. Leave."

She tore her hand from his matted hair and held it away from her, afraid it would sully her kimono.

He managed to raise his head, but he could not look at her.

"I can – I can change," he stammered.

"I've heard it all before, Angelus. It ended when you jumped out a window to save a baby from me." She could sound imperious and wounded at the same time. He sagged again.

"At least let me stay, for a while. Please." His voice had faded to a ragged whisper.

Darla regarded her childe bowed before her. She had never seen him like this before, not in China, not in Romania. Never so desperate. At her silence, she saw the slightest of changes; something in the set of his shoulders suggested hope.

"Angelus," she said, her voice now singsong whisper.

She knelt on the tatami, still keeping her distance.

"Did I tell you that? Did I tell you in China? I killed them all."

"Who?"

"The gypsies who did this to you." Her eyes were wide, but her face was still an eerie blank.

"Oh. You didn't tell me." His face looked strained.

"Not that I'd expect you to appreciate it." She looked at him, laughing a little. "Not my boy, cursed with a soul. My boy doesn't want blood spilled for him. And yet, here he is, looking for me because he's hungry."

Angelus crumpled. It was too much. 

Her voice had become deadpan. "Children always come back."

She paused. She watched as he held himself up from the floor, his weak limbs barely managing even that. 

"You are nothing. Angelus."

He looked at her, for the first time, straight in the eye.

"But you're not nothing to me." With these words she rushed to him, enclosing him in her arms. He collapsed against her. He buried his head in her neck, sobbing, holding her as if he could never let her go. She stroked his back, soothing him, purring to him. Soon she felt it, as she knew she would. Two points against her neck, a low growl. She pushed against him, giving permission.

He sank his fangs into her neck, the fresh blood in her veins an elixir. He pulled slowly, drawing it out of her body without the strength of a heartbeat to help him. He relished every pull. Sire's blood. Every time, it made him feel both immensely powerful and immensely vulnerable. It brought him back to his fledge days in Galway, brought him forward to an eternity with her. His everything. He could feel her nuzzle his neck as she refrained from biting him. He needed all the blood he could get. He moaned in response, holding her closer to him as he drank her in. He just tried to forget the body outside.

All too soon she pushed him away. She looked at his face, and laughed. Angelus bridled, wondering what trick she had dragged him into. Then he realized. He saw the side of her face, the paint all smeared. It must be on his face, too. He laughed with her, his eyes lighting for the first time in two decades. Darla saw that newness.

She ran her hand over his cheek.

"Come on," she said, as she stood.

"Where are we going?"

"You'll see." She smiled as she took him by the hand. 

She led him to the bathhouse. The bath had been refilled, and paper lanterns hung around the walls, filling the room with a soft glow.

She began to undress him. She pushed his grimy frock coat over his shoulders, exposing a waistcoat and a white shirt at least twenty years out of date. She shook her head and laughed as she ripped off the waistcoat and began to unbutton his shirt. The collars had lost their starch a long time ago. She walked around him, slipping the shirt off, running her fingers over his tattoo. She paused as she looked at it. 

"Oh, Angelus," she sighed. "I chose well when I chose you." She smiled, running a delicate hand down his bare chest. He growled in pleasure.

"Take that paint off," he said.

"You take it off," she replied, playfully.

He ripped her obi from her waist. Her kimono followed, the beautiful garment flung unceremoniously on the stone floor of the bathhouse. He pulled at the layers still wrapping her, frustrated by their complexity. Laughing, she tugged open a knot, and they fell away. He ripped off her wig and brought her blonde hair round her face. He roughly pulled her against him and kissed her, raiding her mouth with his tongue, devouring her taste, and shivering when he felt her respond in kind. He felt her skin against his, her familiar curves against his body. She deftly opened his trousers and pushed them down. He kicked them away. He knelt, and brought her down till she straddled him, then he pulled his mouth away from hers. He saw her eyes bright and thrilled at the thought that he had made them so.

He found a basin by the bath, an old bamboo thing, and filled it with water.

"Close your eyes," he whispered gently, as he began to pour the water over her face, rubbing away the paint with his fingertips. He cleaned it from her face, her neck and her back, white streams of water, tinged with red, running down her body as the paint came away. She put her hands under the flow, first washing the white off her fingers, then cleaning the smeared paint from his face. He filled the basin again, and rinsed the last of the whitened water away. 

She could feel him between her legs, becoming aroused. She put a finger to his lips.

"Not yet, Angelus," she said. He moaned and pulled her against him, but she stood up, breaking his grasp, and pulled him up too.

"Not until you're clean again. Into the bath." 

He gazed at her, smiling, intoxicated, then stepped into the bath. The stone base of the bath was hot against his feet, a low fire under the floor keeping the water warm. He sat in the water, leaning his head back, feeling warmth creep into his cold body. He could hear her as she fetched something from the shelves. She came back and sat on a low bamboo stool behind him. His eyes found hers as he looked up at her from the bath. Then she grinned and held up a scissors.

"Angelus," she said, "it's time to bring you into the twentieth century."

He laughed, and wet his hair.

Darla took a comb from the box by her side and began to straighten out his mess of tangles. He yelped now and then as she hit a particularly bad patch. She giggled.

"I give up," she said, a mock-weary tone I her voice. She took out the scissors and started snipping. Angelus could feel a weight lift from his head as she cut away the tangles. He tried to think of the last time he had even thought of his hair, but he couldn't remember. Now it was all he could think of, because that was where her hands were.

He gazed at her as she concentrated.

"You've been here a while."

She glanced at him. "We left Shanghai soon after you did. I couldn't stay there."

"Spike and Dru?"

"They're somewhere. Spike wanted to see Tokyo, said it was more his style."

Angelus smiled gently. "But Kyoto is yours."

"It's quiet. After a hundred and fifty years of… well. I thought I'd like a break." She stared intently at his hair. It was so quiet he could hear it falling to the ground.

"And you? Where have you been?" she asked.

"Around."

"Around?"

"I went to Hong Kong for a while."

"Oh. Docks."

"Yeah."

"I hope the vermin are better there." She didn't say it bitterly. She just said it.

"Not really." 

They fell silent again, as Darla continued to snip his hair.

"How did you find me?"

"Came here months ago. I heard rumours of a beautiful foreign geisha in Kyoto. It could only have been you, Darla."

"You couldn't have known that."

"I heard a rumour about the payments, too."

"Oh."

She combed his hair again. This time he felt the comb glide through, no tangles to stop it.

"There, now. Don't you look better?" She smiled.

"Do I?" He smiled back.

"You will. But it's sticking straight up." She laughed, trying to comb down his hair. "It will go down when it's dry."

Angelus sat up and looked over the side of the bath at his hair on the ground. He ran a hand over his head.

"Feels better," he said.

Then, with preternatural speed, he grabbed her and pulled her into the bath with him.

"Angelus!" she screamed, laughing.

He began to kiss her, letting his hands wander all over her skin.

"Feels even better still," he murmured.

Again he invaded her mouth with his tongue, as she invaded his with hers. He could feel her purr into his mouth as she ran her hands over his chest. He gently kneaded her breast with his hand, while he held her close to him with the other. Then he let his hand run down, over her soft belly, and between her legs, where he found her centre.

"Angelus," she whispered.

He merely groaned in reply as his fingers began to stroke her clitoris.

"Angelus, I haven't fed."

He pulled back and looked at her. 

"You did. Earlier. Outside."

"I gave you that. I gave you all of it."

He stared at her. 

"Oh."

"I need blood. You know that."

"You gave me all of it?"

"Yes, my boy. It's alright, I can feed, and then we can get back to this, lover." She smiled, moving her body against his.

He leant his head back, closing his eyes, feeling her nearness. He could not resist.

"Feed," he said.

"Yoshida!" she called, as she rose from the bath. She stepped towards the door of the bathhouse and called again.

Soon the boy appeared, rubbing sleep from his eyes and attempting to smooth his tousled hair. He saw her standing in the glow of the paper lanterns, wet and naked. He stopped, staring. She could almost hear his thoughts. She moved to one side, as if by accident, allowing him to see Angelus in the bath. His face fell.

"Seiji," she said in her most sensuous voice.

He pulled his yukata tighter around him as he answered.

"Yes, Darla," he said, his voice dead with sleep and disappointment.

"Bring me someone. Anyone. You choose."

He regarded her for a moment.

"Right away, Mistress." He turned and walked away.

Angelus remained still, eyes closed, as Darla waited to hear footsteps. She heard Yoshida go to the servants quarters and knock on a door there. When she heard the voice that replied, she smiled. He could pick the good ones. She was so pretty, and she persisted in breaking the china. 

The girl came to the bathhouse, sleepy and confused. Seeing no one at the door, she walked inside and looked around. She saw a strange man in the bath, his eyes closed, lying as if he were dead. Her shock had not time to wear off before Darla had her by the throat. She did not have time to scream.

When he opened his eyes the body was gone. Darla smiled at him, knowing, luscious. He took her hand as she stepped into the water once more, feeling her new warmth. When he kissed her he could taste the blood. The coppery tang filled his mouth and he crushed her against him, needing that taste. She straddled him in the water, feeling his cock against her belly, straining for her. He ran his hand again between her legs and found her slick and ready for him. She positioned herself over him, and took him in to the hilt. She gasped as he filled her, their bodies fitting together again as they had always done. He began to move inside her and moaned as her inner muscles tightened around him. He turned, so her back was against the side of the bath, and began to thrust as violently as he could in the water. Darla screamed in delight as she wrapped her legs around his hips. He cradled her head and brought his mouth to hers, doubly penetrating her with the voracity of his kisses. She moaned into his mouth as he brought her towards her climax.

Her orgasm carried him over the edge, and he felt the intense waves of pleasure as he spurted his dead seed into her womb.

"Angelus," she said, taking his face in her hands. "Angelus, you've come back!" 

"Darla," he gasped, withdrawing from her. "Darla." He leant in to her as she put her arms around him, soothing him. He lay between her legs, his head on her breasts, as she stroked his hair.

"Come, Angelus. Let's go to bed." 

He nodded, and looked into her eyes. He'd do anything for her, with her, to her.

Anything to get that heartbeat out of his head.


	3. Choice

He never could.

Cocooned as he was in the old wooden house on the river side of the courtyard, he could still hear the sounds of life around him. There were the four girls who had rooms in this rambling old place. If he woke during the day he could hear their gentle breathing, and if he concentrated he could hear the steady thumping of their hearts. During the night, when the girls were gone, there were the sleeping day people. Angelus would sit in the dark courtyard, listening to the sounds from the teahouse as Darla entertained, and feel the sleeping humans near him, only one lapse in control away from violent and bloody death.

Every night he saw the boy enter the bathhouse. His baths were shorter now, and he made his way back upstairs without a glance at his mistress's guest. Then, after a few hours, Darla would follow some doomed man into the courtyard, and he watched her drain him and drop him.

She had taken to hunting again. Every night she gave him all she had. Every night he washed the paint off her skin as he had on that first night, and then waited for her as she slipped out to feed again. 

The thought of it disgusted him. But as long as she did not see that, he could stay. And as long as he could stay, everything would be alright. The thought of rats and solitude repulsed him more.

It was a cold night in early December. Angelus sat on a low bench in the courtyard, listening as usual to the bubble of voices and clink of delicate china from the teahouse. The wind was sharp with the smell of snow from the mountains.

The boy had been standing behind him for a few minutes now. Angelus could sense no fear, merely a seething dislike. And jealousy. But also curiosity.

It was curiosity that won out. 

Yoshida cleared his throat as he stepped forward to stand in front of Angelus. He was well wrapped against the cold, dark furs contrasting dramatically with his pale skin. Despite his general disdain for the boy, Darla's lackey, Angelus had to admit to himself that he cut an elegant figure.

"What is it, boy?" he growled, more for show than any real effort to intimidate.

"My name is Yoshida," replied the boy evenly. "Yoshida Seiji."

"That's great, boy."

Yoshida brushed it off.

"She'll be out here soon," he said.

Angelus said nothing.

"After, you'll feed from her."

Angelus looked at him sharply.

"You've been watching?"

"You watched me," replied Yoshida. "But I don't mind." He smiled and took a cigarette case from a pocket hidden in his garments. He offered a cigarette, which Angelus accepted.

"You are like her?" he continued. "A vampire?"

"Yes." Angelus inhaled the smoke deeply.

"I have never seen you kill."

The vampire merely stared, impassive.

"You drink only from her."

"That's right."

"Why?"

"Why?" Angelus repeated. He was becoming a little annoyed. "I'll tell you why." He stood and came close to the young man. "Because blood is so much more rich when it's flavoured with her."

Yoshida did not back away. He looked Angelus firmly in the eyes.

"I don't think so. I see you waiting hungry here every night. You're lying."

"Really. Or maybe you'd prefer if I was lying, hmm, boy?" Angelus came closer, lowering his voice, threat lacing his throat. "You'd prefer if I drank from her because I had to, not because I wanted to?" He waited, watching the boy's face.

"I taste her every night because she wants me to." He could hear the boy's heartbeat, smell his clean, bathed skin. 

"I taste her everywhere. I taste everything." The boy's heart was speeding up. Angelus could see the blood closer to his skin, red and hot.

"Everywhere you want to be, I've already been."

Finally Yoshida flinched. Angelus roughly grabbed his shoulders and held him close, nuzzling him under the jawline. The heady tang of fear joined the other smells filling his awareness as he felt the blood pumping through the jugular.

He did not hear Darla until she laughed.

He snarled and flung the boy to the ground. She had tonight's fee by the throat.

"Perhaps you want to join me tonight, Angelus? The blood is yours anyway."

"No," he rasped. He collapsed back onto the bench behind him.

"Have it your way."

He watched her, as he always did, in the gloom of the courtyard. Her angelically bland face became monstrous under the paint. He sensed the victim's excitement, fear, and finally resignation, before she dropped the lifeless body to the ground. Then, as usual, she came to him, held out a warm hand, and they retired to the bathhouse.

Yoshida remained on the ground till they were gone.

"You know what you need, Angelus?"

He had fed from her and washed her. The bathhouse was full of steam in the cold.

"What do I need?" He lay against her as she absently stroked his hair.

"You need to get out. You've been here for weeks, alone."

"I've got you," he murmured sleepily.

"Come out with me."

"No. Not tonight."

"I don't mean hunting. I know you won't do that. Even though it makes –"

"Not the sense speech again, please."

She laughed.

"I must go. I'm hungry."

Angelus moved reluctantly. It was always his favourite time, with Darla in the bathhouse.

"While I'm gone, I have a surprise for you."

He knelt in the water as she stepped out and wrapped herself in a yukata.

"Surprise? What surprise?"

"A tailor."

"I have clothes."

"Not evening dress."

"I don't want evening dress." He climbed out of the bath and took his own yukata from the shelf.

"Well, you need evening dress."

"For what?"

"For the party next week."

"Party?"

Her voice floated back to him as she swept out of the bathhouse.

"Yes, party. Now go get measured."

Angelus followed her out. He could feel the cold air on his wet skin, but it didn't bother him.

Party. It was a long time since he had been out in society. He used to love going out.

He shrugged. If she wanted it.

He was thinking about this one time at a soirée in Paris. He couldn't remember when exactly, though he remembered Darla's hair piled up, with ringlets falling on her neck, and held with tiny pearl pins that shone when she moved. Her silk gown was daringly décolleté. He remembered that too. It must have been before the Revolution. She had charmed all the men with her exquisite grace and elegance and tinkling laugh. He had charmed the women with his appreciative eye and roguish manners. They had asked a select group to a dinner party the next evening. It had been quite a feast.

It was strange, he mused, that he could remember these things so fondly and yet with such repulsion. 

He watched her sleeping beside him in the soft light that filtered through the paper screens. After a while, he fell asleep too.

She straightened his tie, the usual ritual when a couple is going out in evening dress. She had at first found it difficult to imagine him in tails, but of course he wore them perfectly, with the easy grace of someone who had always loved the show of dress clothing. How many phases in fashion had come and gone in the last two centuries? And Angelus wore them all with the assurance of a panther.

For the first time, she had dressed alone that evening. It was so easy now. She wore a midnight blue slip dress covered in a net of sparkling glass beads. Her hair was parted at the side, and gathered at the base of her skull. Beaded earrings brushed against her neck when she moved. She felt strange, as if she was not dressed properly because she had not spent enough time at it.

"Tell me again," said Angelus.

She gingerly patted her head, a vague frown on her features.

"Reginald Palmer. He's new money from California, here to import moving pictures, whatever they are. Is my hair smooth?"

"It's perfect. I saw one in Hong Kong. They seem to be catching on."

He held her coat as she slipped into it. 

"He's throwing this party to seem sophisticated and interesting. Everyone will be there. Certainly every foreigner in Kyoto, and plenty more besides. Sometimes I would really appreciate a reflection."

"And we're going because?"

"Because I was invited, because I like parties. And because I want someone interesting to eat. Besides, it will do you good to get out."

He had become very good at hiding his reaction to things.

They decided to walk. It wasn't very far, and Darla wanted to show Angelus the old city. They walked onto Kiyamachi-dori and then south onto Shijo-dori. Despite their proximity, these wider, gaslit streets were quite different from Pontocho-dori. They were lined with ryokans, izakayas, all manner of hostelries, some notably not as exclusive as Darla's hidden establishment. Their denizens occasionally took to the streets, singing some threatening war song or other.

Darla curled her hand round Angelus's arm.

"The world used to be more elegant, I am sure of it," she murmured with disdain.

"No, love, just the parts we frequented," replied Angelus dryly.

Darla laughed.

"Yes!" she exclaimed. "And we made them so. Do you remember, Angelus?"

He turned to her, half smiling.

"How could I forget the whirlwind?"

She gave him a sidelong glance.

His coat flashed red lining in the breeze.

They reached the Palmer residence in fashionable time. The house immediately stood out from its neighbours. Though it was wooden, it was not built in any Japanese style. It was an attempt at a Californian villa squeezed ungraciously into Japanese surroundings. The open door allowed the sounds of the party within to drift out onto the otherwise silent residential street. 

Darla and Angelus reached the doorway. No one removed their shoes at this house. Inside, one might be at a party in East Egg. A piano tinkled somewhere, providing the perfect soundtrack for the scene. 

Angelus was momentarily taken aback by what he saw. How things had changed since he had last noticed people! Women's dresses twinkled and flowed, showing a lot more leg than any female garment had for most of his hundred and seventy years. Cigarettes floated at the end of holders, smoke exhaled by male and female alike. Men wore tails, no longer the frock coat. All mingled with careless ease. Gone were the formalities he had known for most of his existence; the decadence of his youth had returned to the prosperous world.

And he had forgotten. The pressure of their heartbeats on his eardrums. Hidden away in Darla's haven he had forgotten. Now the sound was a constant thrum against the backdrop of voices and music and clinking glasses.

Their host appeared from the throng of partygoers.

"You must be Darla!" he exclaimed. "Please excuse me, I don't know your surname."

"Darla is fine, Mr. Palmer," replied Darla. "What a beautiful house you have here."

Angelus suppressed a smile. Even to him her voice sounded almost sincere.

"Just like home, right?" said Palmer.

"Home, yes." She smiled. "I haven't been there in a while."

She turned to introduce her partner.

"This is Angelus."

"How do you do, Mr. Angelus."

Angelus awkwardly took Palmer's proffered hand.

"Well, come on in, make yourselves at home. Here, give my man your coats. Great! I'll be seeing you later, now!" Their jovial host waved them inside, before turning to greet the next arrivals.

"Well," said Darla. "He is certainly off the menu. I prefer my men with taste." She laughed at her own joke.

Angelus laughed too, despite himself.

They floated through the rooms, watching the people. Even those who might have recognized Darla did not. They had never seen her face unpainted before. Angelus scooped two cocktails from the salver of a passing waiter and handed one to Darla. They picked up snippets of conversation as they passed various groups.

"… my dear, that hat is simply marvelous!"

"…Chaplin, I think. Isn't it…?"

"… tremors in Tokyo – wouldn't it be exciting!…"

"…Mint juleps? Aren't they more an afternoon drink?"

It meant nothing to Angelus.

"Oh, Darla," he sighed. 

"I know, my love," she replied. "I am quite at a loss myself. I've been tucked away for so long."

She continued to wander through the people, trailing Angelus behind her as she loosely held his hand. She was quite fascinated by the humans she saw. The women in particular. The men paled beside her Angelus, she thought smugly. 

But the women, these women like gems in their brilliance. Everywhere they moved or lounged at their ease, in all the colours of a peacock. She had missed the ritual of dressing that evening, her usual space for ordering her thoughts gone. But looking around the room, she decided she very much liked these new, loose-fitting dresses. Corsets, she mused, always made them faint too soon.

Angelus leaned close to her as she scanned the room.

"Well, have you chosen yet?" he whispered.

"Chosen?" She looked back at him.

"Who you're going to kill, my love." His face was expressionless.

"Are you in some kind of rush? Or did you have someone in mind?"

He laughed, though with little humour.

"It's just that it's… loud in here,' he replied, his eyes falling to the carpet.

"Yes. Their heartbeats. It's quite intoxicating." She smiled, her red lips parting in anticipation. "I think a woman," she continued. "Yes, a woman. I've dined almost exclusively on men for so long now. One of these modern women. It will be quite novel!"

She looked around the room. Angelus finished his cocktail which, to him, tasted insipid at best. At least it dulled his senses ever so slightly. So many humans, so many heartbeats. Another cocktail. That's better.

Darla again took his arm.

"Angelus," she said, "it's time to mingle. And while we are mingling, you choose."

"Choose?" He looked at her questioningly. Please no.

"Choose. One of them will die. What does it matter which one? You choose."

The pounding in his ears became louder again, until he could almost feel it in his own chest. He bit hard on his tongue. The coppery taste filled his mouth. Then he nodded, his eyes already darting around the room.

She looked at him appraisingly.

He once told her, she could remember clear as moonlight, that he could not seem to be what he was not.

One question then remained, she thought. It was almost time for him to answer.


	4. Blood

It was a sensible thing to have in any vampire residence, a basement, but until now he hadn't known of its existence. She threw him in, her face ethereally expressionless. He would have preferred a blaze of anger.

The girl followed, a whimpering thing, the coquettishness that had drawn him to her forgotten. 

"You'll stay in there, Angelus, until you answer."

"But I don't know the question!" he cried. 

It was no use. Darla laughed.

"I think you do, Angelus," she replied, shutting the door. He heard the deadbolt slide home.

She was right. He did. He should have expected it.

He looked at the terrified girl. He knew what she was expecting.

No.

He looked around the room. It was big. It must have stretched under the teahouse and right under the courtyard, he reckoned. One end was sectioned off with screens made of intricate lacquered latticework. He tried to move the screens, but he could not. He tried to break them down, but, again, he could not. They were reinforced, probably with steel wire. What was the point anyway? There would just be another wall and another thick locked door. If she wanted to watch, let her.

The rest of the room was furnished expensively, a four poster bed dominating the floor. It was not a pure Japanese room, though it was full of Europeanized Japanese detail. The light curtains on the bed were a delicate white silk, and the wood dark and slim, and there were piles of brilliantly coloured cushions piled on the bed and on other incidental furniture in the room. The overall effect was quite breathtaking. A small space screened off to allow a human occupant privacy. She had not ignored detail. There were bookshelves, too, full of expensive books.

A comfortable prison.

He returned his attention to the girl. She had climbed back up the steps, and was beating on the door, screaming in hopeless entreaty. 

"She won't come," he said, lead in his voice.

At the sound she spun, suddenly silent. Her face was frozen with fear. 

He had chosen her not only because of her beauty, but also because of her brazen confidence. Her jaw jutted forward as she smoked and laughed. She conversed easily in English with the men who strutted around her, daring each other to make the first move. It was Angelus who took up the challenge. His voice mellowed for the occasion, hints of his fast-fading Irish brogue coming once more to the fore. Darla stood to the side, watching her boy again.

He walked straight up to her, no circling, no waiting.

"You're new," she chirruped as he came close. "I've never seen you before. Who are you?"

"I am new," replied Angelus. He cast a scornful eye at the other men hovering about. "And I think you'll find that quality round here is improving."

"I think I'll be the judge of that." Her smile belied any doubt she pretended. "What's your name?"

"Angelus. And you are…?" He moved closer to her as he spoke.

"Ai. It means Love." She did not shy away.

"Now why is it I'm not surprised?" His voice was coming from his throat, and he could see it hitting her straight in the belly. "My, but aren't you a pretty thing."

His eyes said many things, but 'pretty' did not feature.

Darla laughed quietly to herself at the memory. She watched the girl melt under Angelus's expert attentions. No one could resist him. Not even Darla herself.

But this was it, and this was the girl.

When the party began to fade, Angelus brought the girl back to Ponotocho-dori. She was surprised he lived in a teahouse, but too drunk to care why. He could feel Darla behind them, so he waited for her with the girl in the teahouse.

Darla entered the room with her usual regal flair. 

"Well done, Angelus. She is perfect." Darla held the girl's face between finger and thumb.

Angelus's bearing had changed entirely. Gone was the seducer, and in his place was the familiar vampire with a soul, hunched in pain. After his display at the party, it sickened Darla to see that miserable creature return.

"I thought you'd like her," he replied.

"Oh, she's not for me." She turned to Angelus. "I already dined on some of your competition." She walked to the back of the room, and pulled aside a screen.

"Not that I didn't think you could do it without my help," she continued. "I of all people know how impossible it is not to fall for you."

The girl looked confused, but did not seem to realize the danger she was in. Angelus did. When he saw the door, a thick, western, oak door, he knew. The door swung open. There were lights already lit in the room. Oh God, she had been planning this, planning it for tonight and he had never realized.

She moved faster than he could see in his shocked state. She leaned in close, and kissed him. He could taste the blood in her mouth and smell it hot in her veins. He was hungry. He had hunted, and now his demon wanted to feed. It came to the fore with a snarl.

The girl gasped. Darla laughed. Then she coolly flung him across the room, through the door and down the stairs. He fought back the demon in shame. Darla threw the girl in after him.

The girl who was now staring at him in terror.

He took a deep breath.

"Ai," he said, raising his hands. "I won't hurt you."

"What are you?" Her voice was a flat whisper.

"What you saw."

"I saw a demon."

"That's about right."

"But you say you won't hurt me?"

"I won't."

The girl looked a little less afraid. He could still smell it, though, coming off her in waves. He had to stop it.

"Come down, come away from the door." He stepped away from her, to give her space.

She slowly came down the stairs, never removing her eyes from him. He backed away further, until he came to a couch on the other side of the bed. He sat down, sighing.

Ai came towards the bed, touching the drapes, the sheets.

"What does she want with us?" she asked.

"I don't know," Angel lied.

"What question does she want you to answer? And what does it have to do with me?" She regarded him coldly.

He just shrugged, shook his head, and lay back on the couch. There was nothing he could say that would not scare her again, and he could not bear that. Not that smell. 

She looked at him for a long time. 

He watched her as she turned down the bed and found a yukata there. It, too, was white silk. She wrapped it around herself as she lay down. She flicked her eyes towards him.

"You will stay there tonight? On the couch?" she asked.

Angel nodded. She looked satisfied.

He listened to her for a long time, her breathing slightly erratic, her heart racing. But then it slowed, and she was asleep.

Finally. Only in sleep would she stop being afraid, and he could stop smelling that endlessly alluring tang. It brought back too much. How often he had reveled in that smell, loved it, felt it penetrate his body and bring him to such heights of delight. And the taste… he could taste it in the blood. Such a heady thing, fear! He had thrived on it almost as much as he had on the blood itself. Sometimes more, when the kill was not for food. He had filled Europe with fear. Now one room was pungent with it, and he was brought low in longing, need, denial, pain.

Soon he too fell into a fitful sleep. Dreams of the past tortured his repose. His face morphed and morphed back as he dreamt his way through dark streets in the past.

Darla. He felt her. She was close – where? Where? He wandered the streets, searching. What city was this? It could be anywhere. No, wait – Galway? Why was he looking for her in Galway? This is where she found him - 

He woke when he heard a sharp noise. A sliding shutter in the door slamming shut. Food. For Ai. He could smell miso soup. Water, too, to wash with. She was gone. Not Ai, she was still there. Wrapped in her yukata, her glittering dress now thrown in a tired pile on a chair. She took the tray of food from the floor, brought it down the stairs and put it on a low table in front of the chaise longue.

She looked at the bowls and dishes in front of her, then looked at Angelus.

"You want some?" she asked.

He shook his head. She shrugged, picked up the chopsticks and ate.

He watched her. He could not remember how that felt. Solid food. The last time he had solid food was a long time ago. Maybe a dinner party that ended in a bloodbath, maybe supper after the opera, more drama in the parlour than had been on the stage. Maybe gore, a chunk of flesh from a ripped throat, a torn thigh. It felt like nothing. Nothing like blood.

Not so to her, obviously. She glanced at him now and again, but ate ravenously, unselfconsciously. Finished, she laid her chopsticks carefully across the empty rice bowl. Then she stood and brought the ewer of water and the basin behind the folding screen. He heard water pouring, splashing. He heard her breath, her heart. 

Not too much fear. Not very afraid of him – just general apprehension. She was locked in a room with a demon.

She read most of the day. He didn't know what to say. He could feel the daylight outside, but she had to trust the slamming shutter in the door. Had to trust lunch in the middle of the day, dinner in the evening, supper before bed. Had to trust him. He lay on the couch, barely moving. His muscles were not about to atrophy. He could lie there as long as she wanted.

If he could only stave off the hunger.

Again, she lay in bed a long time before she could sleep. The smell of her filled the room. Pleasant, clean skin. Worry, fear. 

Hungry. He heard her sleep. Darla was back. Try to forget her. He allowed his face to change, slowly, then he sank his fangs into his arm. White skin on the inside of the wrist. Nothing special – no – hardly anything at all. But enough to stave off the bloodlust for a while. He closed his eyes. Tried not to acknowledge that the thin blood in his veins would soothe him for no more than a couple of hours. Tops.

He dreamt again. Galway, cobbled streets in some places, but mostly dirt. Filthy tenant farmers, their filthy children, filthy wives. Potato-fed poverty. They could be tenants on his father's land, could be tenants anywhere. Could have been thrown out of their filthy homes by some pompous British landlord and red-coated soldiers, watched their whitewashed walls char, their old thatch going up in flames as hungry as them. Did his father ever have people thrown off his land? He didn't know, didn't care. Filled the taverns with buxom young things willing to sell more than drink. Fine with Liam.

Who was he looking for? He couldn't find her – wait, that's not right, he didn't know her before. Angelus shook his head in his sleep. He didn't know her then.

He woke to the same day. Same day noises, not a word from the girl. He paced for a while, just for a change; she read again. Sometimes tears silently rolled down her face, and she didn't turn the page for too long.

For nights, while Darla watched, he recycled the same blood. It got thinner and thinner. No taste. Bad vintage. He laughed with no sound and no humour. He felt her eyes on him, but they had stopped burning. Then he slept fitfully, dreaming of Galway, dreaming he had a heartbeat. His chest rose and fell almost all night, humanness of dreams and shallow sleep. Darla, powdered hair, dress too good for the place. Where was the alley? He had to find her. He thought it was just over there… He knew this place. He had come here since he was old enough to ride out from the estate. Where the hell was that alley? He heard her voice –

He woke to the sound of a laugh. He had morphed in his sleep – hunger. Darla laughing, quietly. He was getting thinner, turning into a skeleton. 

She lay on the bed, her breathing even, heartbeat a peaceful dub. Maybe – no. He moved anyway. No. But if he didn't touch the neck, she wouldn't wake up, might never even know. But no. He would never do it. He was over by the bed, gently pulling back the covers. She'd never know. He could do it painlessly, tiny scars only, and if he bit her there – she'd never know. He pushed her yukata up her thighs. She lay on her back. He gently pushed her legs further apart. He could sense the blood. Close to the surface at the top of the thigh. Her heartbeat remained steady, breathing undisturbed. He stroked her thigh softly. She did not move. A little more, circles on her flesh with his fingertips. She shifted slightly. But nowhere near consciousness. Would he do it? He leant in close and ran a rough tongue against her skin, high on her thigh, where she would not see it if – could he? He leant in again, nuzzling this time. She sighed. He froze. She did not wake. He could. Just a little. He could control himself. Control himself after he – he bit, gently, his fangs sliding into her flesh with the practice of age. He withdrew them just as gently, blood beginning to flow into his mouth. Elixir. He had just nicked her artery, a tiny cut, not big enough to cause profuse bleeding. He stayed at the crux of her thigh until the bleeding stopped, blood flowing down his throat, soaking through his system, tingling in his fingertips. Tingling everywhere. He licked her thigh clean, reluctantly drawing back. She moaned softly, and moved in her sleep. 

Angelus felt intoxicated. He returned to his couch, lay down, feeling as close to peace as he had since he had come back to Darla. He could feel her there. For the first time since she had locked him in this room, he could not imagine her expression. Pride that she had made him cave? Anger that he did not finish it? He tried to forget her again. 

His dreams would not let him. 

Days passed. Ai became paler, spent more time on the bed, less time reading, less time conscious. Every night he said no, even as he slid his fangs in he said no. Every day she became weaker. He knew they would not get out until she died. He vowed he would die first. He knew he wouldn't.

Darla there every night, chasing her, trying to find her in the maze Galway had become in his head. 

Then one night he found her.

He looked at her lying on the bed. Finally! He moved to her, dropping his clothes as he went, and kissed her, deeply, invading her pliant mouth with his tongue. He opened her yukata, her body once more fitting into his. He kissed her all over, he heard her moan, faintly, spurring him on. His ready cock entered her, and he began to move, making love to her, feeling her warm against him as he had never felt her before. He thrust into her, all the while devouring her with crushing kisses. It wasn't enough, he could feel it wasn't enough. He moved to her neck, nuzzling then biting down, his body already pulsing pleasure as he came close to climax. He could feel her shuddering underneath him, her blood pouring, pumping into his veins, it tasted different after so long without, so much more full of something, full of life – He came, thrusting into her, prologing his orgasm, emptying her of blood, feeling her melt away in his arms. 

He drew back and looked at her, his face glowing, hers white and blank. Ai lay there, her eyes rolled into the back of her head, her neck at an unnatural angle, the last drops of blood in her emaciated body seeping from the puncture wounds. 

He withdrew from her, still wet and warm.

"Is this enough?" he whispered, his face tilted slightly towards where Darla was hidden, but his eyes still fixed on the eyes inches from his face, glazing as he watched.


	5. Epilogue

He leant back, legs stretched in front of him, on a floor chair beside the kotatsu table.  He was in her rooms now; somewhere Yoshida was overseeing the removal and disposal of Ai's body.  He took a cigarette from a black lacquer box on the table.  He lit it and inhaled deeply, the smoke mixing with the taste of blood in is mouth.  He was fidgeting, new energy in his veins, picking at threads on his dishevelled tailcoat, twisting the buttons on his shirt.

She made one of her trademark dramatic entrances.  He never got tired of watching that.

She did not look at him as she walked around the table, her outer kimono untied but held with gripping hands tight to her body.  Her face was unpainted, pale against the red and gold of her magnificent garment.

She knelt carefully, spreading the kimono around her, her hair flowing long and flaxen down her back.  Finally she looked at him.

She looked like nothing he had imagined.  No pride, no sneer.  What was it that suffused the gentle lines of her face?

"My boy is leaving again."  Her voice was flat.

That was it.  Disappointment.

He nodded in reply, avoiding her eyes.

She continued.  "You did that yourself, Angelus.  I encouraged you, helped you find the right situation, I hoped that it would bring you back.  Apparently not.  But you did that yourself."

"I know."

They both paused, as Angelus once more inhaled the smoke that vaguely numbed the sensations on his tongue.

"You are contemplating rats."  Darla broke the silence.

"That's right."

"How will they feel again after the delicacy you have just tasted?"

"Free."

"Angelus.  How prosaic."

Angelus laughed mirthlessly.

"I'm not trying for poetry, Darla."

"What are you trying for, then?"

"I'm trying to forget."

"Why did you come to me?  So you could curl up inside me and forget all of it, forget a hundred and fifty years, forget that every night I gave you the blood of a dead human?"

"Yeah."

Silence.

"And I reminded you of it all."

"Yeah."

"I disgust you."

He exhaled a ragged breath, protesting.

"I do," she continued.  "I remember when you disgusted me, my boy."

He looked at her.  There was a wistful smile on her face.

"No more?" he asked.

"Things change."

"Yeah."

"But I don't."

"You've changed since Shanghai."  He flicked cigarette ash into a brass ashtray.

"How?" she asked.

"You're quieter.  I've never seen you so… quiet.  Gentle."

"I haven't changed, Angelus.  Not really."

"But Darla, you can!"  Angelus leaned forward onto the table, excitement now animating his features.  "You could!  You could come with me, we could go somewhere no one knows us, America maybe, and we could fade away together, you and me!"

"Fade away?"  Her eyes were wide.

"Yes!  Darla, we could be together –"

"Fade away!  Angelus, do you forget who I am?"

"No.  No, I do not.  That's why I'm saying this, Darla.  Do you see me saying this to Spike, to Dru?"

"A hundred and fifty years, and now you don't know me!  Or maybe you're so narcissistic you think I'll change because you did."

She stared at him.  His enthusiasm began to falter.

"Darla, it's the only way."

"The only way for what?  For us to be together?  Did you learn nothing from your weeks in that room?"

"I learned one thing.  I learned that everywhere I've been, everywhere I go, I'm looking for you."

"That's touching, Angelus. Very moving.  Do you think Ai felt your pain as you fucked her, drank her and killed her?"

"Don't."  His chest felt hollow.

"Don't what?  Remind you of what you are, what I am?  And, Angelus – something you seem to have entirely forgotten – what I want to be?  What I like being?"

The cigarette crackled as it burned towards his fingers in a bright orange glow.  Smoke caught the light as he exhaled, making it seem somehow more real than it tasted.

"'Like being', Darla?  Is that why you locked yourself away here?  Not hunting properly for – how long?  Nearly twenty years?"

"I am over three hundred years old.  Forgive me if I need a holiday."

He laughed.

"A holiday?  You're the woman who killed by my side for a century and a half?"

"Yes.  No.  With you I was –"  Her breath caught.  "I was one of two.  Now I am starting again.  One of one."

"You're good, Darla.  Very good.  I could almost believe you actually felt that."

"Fine.  Think what you want."

"You want a holiday, come away with me.  I'll show you how it can be alright."

"You crawled back to me because nothing was alright.  Because you couldn't bear it anymore.  Can you really see me dining on rats, Angelus?  Supping on vermin?"

Angelus stubbed out the cigarette.

"No.  I can't."

"That's right.  And don't ever forget, you killed a human tonight.  You and your soul."

"I – I thought it was you."

"Excuse me?"

"I saw you.  On the bed.  I bit her – didn't know why you didn't bite back…"

Darla looked blank.

"You need that fiction?  You can't even admit it now?"

"It's not a fiction."

"Angelus, she had a heartbeat," she said impatiently.  "Don't even begin to pretend you didn't hear it."

He kept his eyes low, playing now with the cigarette butt, pushing ash around in the ashtray.

"I – it was all mixed up.  I was looking for you, and then you were there."

"Angelus, this is ridiculous.  I don't want to hear it."

"I knew I was wrong."  He sighed, his dead heart almost audibly crumbling.  "I guess I knew it was her.  I wanted it to be you, so badly –"

"What are you saying?  You come back to me, you want me, you kill for me, but I still disgust you too much for you to stay?"

He couldn't answer, he just held his head, squeezing his eyes tight as if he could block it all out.

Darla stared at him.

"Come, Angelus.  Why don't I make it easier for you?"

"What?"

She stood, and held her hand to him.

"I'll make it easier for you to leave.  Make it easier for me to watch you walk away."

The courtyard still smelled of snow.  There were still a few hours till sunrise.  Bare cherry trees gently moved their skeletal arms in the winter breeze.  

"Yoshida!" she called.

For a moment, just the sound of the trees creaking quietly.  Then footsteps from inside the house.  Yoshida appeared, wrapped again in his dark furs.

"Yes, mistress?" he said.

Angelus gauged the boy.  It was wearing on him, this death surrounding him.  Extra lines in his white skin, a tiredness, and oldness that did not belong in his young face.

Angelus stopped by the bench.  Darla continued moving towards the boy, her eyes locked on his face.  It was as if he knew what was coming.  He watched Darla walking to him, and then looked around, smelling the air, his gaze wandering over the courtyard lit by brittle moonlight.  Dark buildings, dim light glowing behind paper screens.  Light spilled from the bathhouse onto the soft ground, holding his fogged breath in the air as he experienced the world for the last time.

Darla stood before him.  His gaze finally swept around to her, his eyes to hers.  A vague hint of a smile played about his lips as he leant towards her.  He kissed her, fully and completely, feeling her against his skin as he had always wanted.  Then he pulled back and tilted his head, staring at her, waiting.

Her demon came forward, snarling, purring.  His breath caught, and she could hear his heartbeat increase in speed.  But he did not flinch.  

Angelus watched his face crease as Darla sank her fangs in his neck, right into the jugular.  His mouth opened as his eyes closed, and his body sagged into hers.  His breath was a long, contented sigh.  Angelus saw the last flicker of life in his fluttering eyelids.  She let his body drop to the cold ground.

She looked over her shoulder at Angelus.  With hard eyes she watched him turn, walk through the teahouse, out onto Pontocho-dori and back into the night.

She left soon after, leaving eleven bodies in the courtyard: six servants, four beautiful, painted geisha, and Yoshida Seiji.  There was no one to dispose of them anymore.


End file.
